Forgive me, but I have been a victim of the carefully crafted disinformation of “the game” from staff members in the past, in GQ. In the post I was referring to, you used the word “contributed” to the column, and not “wrote” the column. If you actually were one of the rotating Cecils, and were engaged in “the game”, that would have been a deliberate way of being able to say that you were being 100% truthful while at same time appearing to deny being one of the Cecils.
You know, the constant speculation is kind of silly. Ed has written the column for 30 years although he didn’t start it. Every time someone else contributes to the column Ed gives them full credit. Why is this so hard to understand? Cecil Adams isn’t a pen name for Ed Zotti only in the sense that he didn’t write the earliest columns.
My question was addressed to Lynn Bodoni, not to you. You’ll have to forgive me for not taking your word as to what another person meant by what they wrote.
Perhaps, but the silliness is fueled entirely by “those in the know”. In the past, when I have seen threads on this topic, various staff members, mods, and/or others connected to the Straight Dope have taken great delight in playing their game. The game is, “Let’s pretend that Cecil is a real person, not Ed, not anyone else on the staff, that Cecil Adams is not a pen name for anyone else, but the real name of the real smartest man alive. And further, let’s see how skillfully we can post answers to the question of ‘who is Cecil Adams?’ and its variants that are completely truthful yet lead people to believe the opposite of what’s true. We must never say directly, ‘yes Cecil is real’ or ‘no Cecil is not real’, nor any variation of that, but must instead come as close as possible to saying the former while still never actually saying an untruth.”
Oh, and I almost forgot the most important rule of the game: “We can NEVER under any circumstances acknowledge the existence of the game. Even to those who have no desire to play.”
Personally, I will never understand the joy of that game, but I’ve been the victim of it more than once. So any silliness falls 100% on the side of those playing the game, not on those who, in GQ, are simply asking a simple question and getting (in the past) nothing but obfuscation in return.
If those in this thread are finally, actually being direct and honest, I applaud them.
Pardon me if I take issue with your characterization of any mod/Admin/other person on this board is one of “those in the know” as to whether Cecil exists as a real live person.
I can only answer for myself and a few other Mods who are my friends–I personally have no knowledge of any factual information about whether Cecil is an actual person, separate from Ed Zotti or the earlier editors, or is totally a fabrication. Nor do any mod or Admin, at least in my mind. I’ve don’t remember that any of these types have ever said they have met Cecil and can vouch for his existance. I have never been instructed to “play the game” or go along with some great conspiracy.
I can say that I have never met either Cecil Adams or Ed Zotti, or for that matter samclem, Lynn Bodoni, or any of the SDSAB. All of them could be equally real, or equally fictitious, as far as I have any direct personal knowledge.
IIRC, all Biggest Secrets says is something along the lines of “Cecil Adams is XXXXX XXXXX”. (I’m not going to spoil it, go buy the book if you want to know :p). That’s hardly what I’d call “blowing the lid off”. There’s no explanation, no indication as to how William Poundstone arrived at that conclusion, just that one line.
Secondly, the very first Straight dope book has a markedly different writing style than the later ones, in my opinion. Whether “Cecil” toned it down a bit as the column got more popular or whether it was actually written by a different person I couldn’t say.
Quite a lot to me! I’d always considered that the author of the columns was very thoughtful and quite an exceptionally clear thinker. A wise man, if you will. I thought him someone who would never be so blindly imperceptive of the subtle and not-at-all subtle negative effects his mid-life crisis was having on his readership to ever play a role roughly akin to Nixon or Bork in The Saturday Night Massacre. First one, then a second respected moderator resigned rather than enforce Ed’s fairly byzantine and heavy-handed new dictates suppressing poster to poster conversations in the Pit in odd, equivocal and speech-chilling ways.
So to answer your (possibly rhetorical) question, I’ve lost all interest in Ed’s columns and my enthusiasm for this board has dropped precipitously. I’ll probably keep reading and posting here occasionally, but only because there are two new offspring boards and I haven’t yet decided which of the now-three boards I should frequent more.
To sum up: I’m sad and disappointed that Cecil Adams isn’t the man I thought he was.
If you want to continue to hash this over, please take it to ATMB. Let’s not have this turn into yet another discussion of these issues. This goes for everyone.
I’ve read The Barn House one and a half times (got a personally autographed copy, too ) and I’ve read more than a thousand of Cecil’s columns, and the writing style is only distantly similar. I’m not asserting anything one way or another, or saying something by omission, or hinting about something, or anything else that can be twisted or SDMB barracks-lawyered into something - I’m just saying in response to an earlier query by DrCube that I personally do not see a blatant similarity between the two. YMMV.
I recognized at the outset that this straddled both topics, but I nevertheless consider that single post to be entirely appropriate for this thread. However, rest assured that I’m not going to continue on along those lines here, and I thank you for the courteous way you treated me.
I haven’t read Ed’s new one (maybe a title on fixing up crappy dorms would better appeal to me), but I slightly disagree with the question of style. Just flipping back and forth between this week’s column and one of the old ones, I’m pretty sure I could tell which one was written later if I didn’t know the dates. Now, of course, this could be different people, an author’s style changing over time, or something else. Nothing conclusive, YMMV, etc.
) and I’ve read more than a thousand of Cecil’s columns, and the writing style is only distantly similar. I’m not asserting anything one way or another, or saying something by omission, or hinting about something, or anything else that can be twisted or SDMB barracks-lawyered into something - I’m just saying in response to an earlier query by DrCube that I personally do not see a blatant similarity between the two. YMMV.